


nobody's righteous, nobody's proud

by brinnanza



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Episode Related, Gen, MAG 154: Bloody Mary, canon-typical anger and sadness, discussions of canon-typical eye trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-27 19:43:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20765918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brinnanza/pseuds/brinnanza
Summary: “You’ve got to be fucking joking,” Basira says flatly. She’s horrified, obviously, but she’s also so utterly unsurprised that it gets squashed right out of her tone.Or: Jon tells the others about Eric Delano's statement





	nobody's righteous, nobody's proud

**Author's Note:**

> *quickly tosses this into the void before I get jossed* I had some thoughts here they are no betas we die like men. title from hadestown (when the chips are down) because it's a thing now apparently

“You’ve got to be fucking joking,” Basira says flatly. She’s horrified, obviously, but she’s also so utterly unsurprised that it gets squashed right out of her tone. Of course the only way to escape an eyeball god is to gouge your eyes out. Of course that’s it. 

Jon gives a weary sigh, steepling his fingers on his desk. “I’m afraid not,” he says. “One of Gertrude’s assistants, Eric Delano, was able to escape.” 

He plays the relevant section of tape. Basira is not sure “escaped” is the correct word for someone who still wound up a page in a creepy skin book. The Eye - the Archivist - had gotten him in the end anyway, just one more statement recorded to tape. He’d still lost everything, was still subject to the whims of the Beholding. Losing his sight hadn’t granted him freedom, not really, and even if it had, Basira's not quite that desperate to get out of here. 

Yet. 

"I know it's drastic," Jon says, looking up at the three of them, "but it's something, at least." He looks up, offers them an apologetic shrug, like that’s supposed to make up for dragging them all down into this.

Consideration passes over Melanie’s face, and her eyes dart to the letter opener on Jon’s desk. She squares her shoulders, lifts her chin. “Right,” she says, clapping her hands together. “So who’s got the steadiest hands? Might as well be precise about it.”

Basira stares at her. “You can’t be serious.”

“It wouldn’t be the first amateur surgery I’ve undergone in this place.”

“Digging out a bullet is not the same thing as _gouging your eyes out_.”

“I was willing to die to get out of this place,” Melanie says. Her voice is cold, but it lacks the scalpel-sharp edge it used to have. Instead, it just sounds hollow, like there’s nothing left to fill the spaces left by her anger. “Blindness seems like a pretty great alternative, actually.”

“I hope you’re not considering this,” Basira says, turning to Daisy. There are dark, bruise-colored bags under Daisy’s eyes, and she’s too thin, sunken in on herself until only bones remain, skin stretched thin over her skeleton. And Basira knows that the fire that once burned within her wasn’t _her_, not really, was just the influence of the Hunt, but Basira misses her all the same. This Daisy is already so weak, so…

_Useless_, Basira thinks, and she hates herself for it a little, but not nearly enough.

The corner of Daisy’s mouth quirks up a little, a vague impression of a smile that doesn’t even pretend to reach her eyes. “I knew what I was signing up for,” she says. “It’s not the Eye that’s got me anyway.”

“And you?” Basira says to Jon. “_Can_ you even? The Eye is what’s keeping you alive, isn’t it?”

“Probably,” says Jon. He’s too thin and frail, dark bags under his own eyes, but Basira’s not sure that even means anything for him anymore. He’s not human, hasn’t been for a while, and Basira remembers the six months his heart did not beat and his lungs did not breathe and yet somehow he lived.

“Are you going to tell Martin?”

“I did.” Jon gives a dry, mirthless chuckle. “I told him as soon as I found out. I wanted -- Well, it doesn’t matter what I wanted. It’s too late for both of us.”

“What, he didn’t want to ride off into the sunset with you?” Basira says, not bothering to soften her tone. She knows she sounds cruel, callous, but there is nowhere for her rage to go except here, to Jon, the architect of so many problems. “Did you actually think he would _now_?”

“No,” Jon says. “No, I really don’t think I did. But the rest of you… You can still get out of here. If that’s what you want.”

“It is,” Melanie says, at the same time that Basira says, “Not like this.”

“Alright,” Jon says with finality, like he’s dismissing them at the end of a meeting. His gaze drops back down to his desk, and Basira can see his fingers twitching toward his pile of statements. 

“There’s no guarantee the other powers won’t still come after you,” Basira points out. 

Melanie just shrugs. “Let them. It’s not like it’s any safer in here.”

\--

Melanie’s wearing a broad grin and a thick, white bandage over her eyes when Georgie comes to pick her up. She throws a cheery wave to the rest of the archives staff, her other hand clasped firmly in Georgie’s. “So long, suckers!” she shouts, and then Georgie leads her out of the Archives and back into the world.

Basira watches her leave, and she’s not sure if it’s with envy or pity.


End file.
